When vengeance strikes in the form of a bullet out for the princess's blood, Princess Aleia VonAuclair must flee the heart of her country in order to protect the people she loves and take back the pieces of her soul she'd lost to the girl she once l...
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The Land of the Forgotten.
I fiddled with my fingers as Edrian pulled up to the graveyard site, my stomach in thick knots and my nerves in disarray as I stared out into the gloomy clearing.
Even with the afternoon sun high up in the sky, elevating the temperature to near sweltering, the trees and everything around them seemed to know who occupied the grounds, who lived their last, dying days here because a bleak haze blanketed the air, leaving a grey almost dull ring around the space.
Even the sunlight didn't dare touch it. They didn't cross over the line to the forgotten.
I released a shaky exhale and reached over for the door handle but a firm hand to my knee stopped me. I turned to Edrian, his brows pinched and his lips downturned with concerned frown.
"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you? I don't mind keeping you company."
I smiled softly and shook my head.
"It's okay. This is something I need to do alone."
Edrian looked at me for another moment, his eyes roving all over my face before he dipped his chin in a reluctant nod. I leaned over the dashboard and pecked his lips once, then pulled on the door handle and stepped out into the beating sun. Edrian watched me, the concern still potent in his eyes but I merely smiled with reassurance and walked over to the unkempt pathway that led to the burial site.
My heart stuttered out a painful rhythm in my chest, and even though I'd reassured Edrian more times than I could count that I was okay on my own, now that I was here, I didn't feel so okay, anymore. But I needed to do this, and I felt like I was finally ready.
It took more than a year...but I was ready.
Something had called to me in the middle of the night, a gut feeling, a phantom touch, and a part of me, a deep rooted part that I'd buried into the shadows, believed it was Isa. And I've yearned for the day that I had the strength to face her again and now...I think I did.
I walked the gravel pathway on unsure steps. Weeds sprouted from the cracks in the soil, dust and rocks marred the ground, and trees, looming and eerie, circled the site like prying eyes, like they were watching the people who were buried here and making sure they never got out.
With my heart in my throat and my mind in fragments, I spotted Isa's headstone. The word 'headstone' was used for the lack of a better one. The headpiece that supposedly 'commemorated' Isa barely did such a thing. There were no dates, no details, no epitaph. Just her first name: Isabella.
The feat was to symbol the height of their disgrace. Those who committed acts society deemed punishable but not by death, were allowed full names and a short epitaph. Those who committed such grave acts society deemed punishable by death and erased from memory, from existence, were only allowed a single name. And even that was a gift.
